Dead, to Begin With
A Dan Rhodes Mystery
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Sheriff Dan Rhodes is back again in Bill Crider's thrilling Dead, to Begin With.
"Readers will cheer Rhodes along as he sorts through a tangle of old secrets and personal relationships en route to the satisfying solution." Publishers Weekly
In Clearview, Texas, a wealthy recluse has joined the community and is leading the restoration of an old opera house. When he falls to his death, Sheriff Dan Rhodes suspects that he’s been murdered, but there doesn’t seem to be a motive. Who would want to kill someone who’s helping the town and hasn’t been around long enough to make any enemies?
The Sheriff’s suspicion proves to be true, however, and he begins to look for motives buried in the past, meanwhile having to deal with people fighting over baseball cards at a yard sale, writers who want to talk to him about his sex life, and the Clearview Ghost Hunters, headed up by Seepy Benton, who believes that the old theater is haunted. Clearview might be a small town, but there’s no shortage of excitement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Crider's fun 24th mystery featuring laid-back Blacklin County, Tex., sheriff Dan Rhodes (after 2016's Survivors Will Be Shot Again), reclusive Jake Marley, the 60ish scion of a wealthy oil boom era family, takes a fatal fall onto the stage of the Clearview Opera House, a movie theater that's been closed for decades. The Clearview, which Jake bought and restored, was about to mark its reopening with a performance of a Texas version of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. In his will, Jake, who was to play Marley's ghost, stipulates four local people to play other roles and requires Rhodes to attend as a condition for the theater to receive continued funding. As Rhodes delves into what he suspects is a murder case, he has to put up with a number of minor distractions, starting with the annoying banter between dispatcher Hack Jensen and jailer Lawton, who "thought of themselves as the Abbott and Costello of Blacklin County." Readers will cheer Rhodes along as he sorts through a tangle of old secrets and personal relationships en route to the satisfying solution.)
